


Mutually Assured

by Verbyna



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Codependency, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, References to Addiction, Self-Medication, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3669315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The smile on Kent’s face is all wrong. He fixes it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutually Assured

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the KPGG. You guys hurt me so good <3 <3 Thanks to jedusaur/ohshitcircuit for the beta and title.

i.

Kent stopped hooking up at parties a while back, but there’s this redhead tonight who’s looking at him all hungry and hot. He’s got his hand on her waist, leaning in to tell her that he has a key to the master bedroom, when he catches Jack’s eyes across the room.

He doesn’t mean for his hand to tighten on her. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it until she presses harder against him. She tilts her head back and he leans in to kiss her, but he can’t stop watching Jack watching them, like a fucked-up feedback loop. It’s hotter than it has any right to be. It makes him feel a little sick.

Later, as she’s putting her bra back on, she turns around and goes, “You could’ve brought your boy along.”

He has to laugh. “I don’t share well.”

She shrugs and finishes getting dressed. “I know it sounds a little gay, but it could be fun.”

He has no idea what her name is, but he keeps thinking about what she said in the weeks that follow. Yeah, it’s a little gay. Or a lot. He’s been thinking about Jack when he jerks off since last year. Maybe it’s finally becoming obvious how completely fucked he is, if he can’t even make out with a girl unless Jack’s in the room to see it.

 

ii.

They’re naming a play for the negative space between him and Kent, for the way Jack’s skin goes warm and his awareness stretches to catch both of them. He likes how no one tells him he’s not trying hard enough to be social anymore. Sure, it’s just one friend, but he’s never alone anymore, even when he’s not doing things with the team.

Most of the time they’re by themselves. It makes it harder to hide the pills. At least, it does until Kent finds the bottles in his bag, wrapped up in a rolled towel, and lines them up on a hotel nightstand while Jack’s taking a shower. Jack notices them right away, like he was meant to. Kent isn’t subtle.

Jack tries to say he’s not a mess, but why bother? Kent says, “You are.” He pats the bed; Jack walks over and sits down next to him, then pulls his legs up and lays his head on his knees so he doesn’t have to look at Kent anymore.

“I need them for my panic attacks.”

“I’m not judging,” Kent says. Jack wonders if he should be grateful or if the spike of fear is more than his usual anxiety. He can’t trust his own reactions; that’s why he trusts Kent.

“I--I probably don’t need that many,” he says. It should be said. He’s never talked about them before, except with the doctor who prescribed them three years ago. His mother tried, but it was before he needed it. She never tried again.

Kent’s hand comes down heavy and warm on the back of Jack’s neck. “Do you have it under control?” Jack nods. “Where are you getting them, anyway?”

He can’t feel his fingers. He feels laid bare, like he’s in a confessional or watching his interviews, and he wants to take something. He can’t. Or--no, he can, because Kent knows he’s a mess. He said so. They don’t have any secrets left, so Jack holds out his hand.

Kent passes him a bottle and Jack swallows two pills dry, passes it back blind, hears it clicking on the fake wood of the nightstand. Kent rubs his back and makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, almost a growl.

“Look, I’m not gonna fuck around. You’re the best player I know. If you need help holding your shit together, that’s life. I’ll get some numbers for you when we get back so you don’t have to score from one place all the time. But you have to talk to me, right?”

“Oui, mais--”

“No excuses, bro. You come to me.”

When Jack looks at Kent, he’s biting his lip and the hand that’s not on Jack’s back is a fist against his thigh. Jack mirrors the lip-biting, notices how Kent’s eyes are drawn to his mouth, how fast he looks away. He’s been trying not to notice it for a while. The meds helped with that, too.

And, well, Jack’s not stupid. He knows a thing or two about strategy. If he wants to keep trusting Kent after this, it has to be mutually assured destruction.

He says, “Don’t tell.” 

Kent kisses him back like he wants to get inside Jack’s skin, and both their lives are over if they talk.

 

iii.

Jack goes up to Kent’s mom’s place for Christmas. It took some persuasion, but Kent is around Jack about twenty hours a day; he doesn’t want to see what happens if they spend ten days apart. Besides, their time together is limited by the draft. He won’t waste any of it if he can help it.

His mom keeps frowning at them when Jack’s distracted. Kent shrugs at her and grimaces at Jack’s back where he’s standing at the kitchen window, elbows-deep in warm dishwater, mind gone who knows where. Kent’s heart is pounding, but she seems to get something out of his display and doesn’t bring it up, though she keeps making that suspicious face. When they talk, it’s always about the draft.

He takes Jack out to the pond on New Year’s Eve on a whim. They do a few loops, stretch their muscles, and then Jack snaps out of his stupor long enough to take in the view.

“This place is nice. Did you used to come here? As a kid?”

Kent smiles and points at a random patch of frozen reeds. “That’s where I fell on my ass for the first time. Dad was teaching me to skate. I was three--four, maybe? He wasn’t good, but he got the basics across fine.”

“Did he sign you up for hockey?”

Jack seems honestly curious, fond in a way Kent doesn’t let himself think about much. It’s not the same as the gnawing hunger in the pit of Kent’s stomach, but god, he looks so good right now. Kent’s sick with how much he wants him. He wants to break him so he’ll always need Kent to hold him together, wants to replace the voice in Jack’s head with his own so Jack has to use Kent’s words when he’s not around. He wants to sleep with him, even if they don’t have sex. 

It’s not a blinding realization, that he’s in love with Bob Zimmermann’s son. It’s fucking awful anyway.

“Kenny?”

“What? Oh yeah, no, it was my mom. Dad took off when I was five. She wanted me to have a hobby or something.”

“I was two,” Jack offers awkwardly.

Of course he was. And Jack’s dad never left; he’s right here with them, between them, like the draft and the playbook they annotated last night in Kent’s childhood bed.

“Fuck it, it’s too cold out. Let’s go back and mess up the diet plan.” 

One day he’ll look back at this and laugh, probably. Right now he just wants Jack to stop pitying him. He doesn’t know the half of it.

 

*

 

Kent’s mom goes to a party that night. Jack talks to his parents, then takes a couple of pills. He doesn’t want to tell Kent about the conversation. When Kent comes upstairs with a bottle of vodka, Jack doesn’t have an excuse not to drink.

An hour later, he’s less tense than he’s been since freshman year. Kent keeps smiling at him, watching him through his lashes, and it should be ridiculous, but somehow it isn’t. Jack’s suddenly curious about all the things they haven’t done yet, and when Kent slides a hand high on Jack’s thigh, he finds himself sliding down the bed until Kent’s cupping Jack’s dick through his shorts.

“Shit,” Kent says, staring at his hand. Jack swallows, but everything is slow and heavy, pulling him down. He just wants something sharp enough that he’ll stop thinking ahead.

“Please,” he tells Kent, a little too honest. He’s never begged for anything in his life. “I want--”

Kent shakes his head and tries to pull his hand away; Jack holds it there, raises his free hand to touch the side of Kent’s neck.

“Why everything, but not this? What difference does it make?”

He barely recognizes himself, but Kent must recognize the dare in his voice. “Oh yeah? You think we can go back from this? That we can fuck and go back to being friends, just like that?”

“It’s not like I asked you to prom,” Jack counters. He hates how petulant he sounds. “What difference does it make?” he asks again.

Kent doesn’t move for a minute. Jack’s about to tip into humiliation when Kent finally says, “I guess it doesn’t matter.”

He’s really good in bed. Jack had his suspicions, but he never would’ve guessed how intense Kent can get about giving a blowjob. As far as he knows, Kent’s never slept with a guy before.

 

*

 

Kent is watching Jack waking up. He’s been watching him sleep for the past hour, facedown on the pillow three inches from Kent’s arm. He is fucking terrified to reach across his own bed to the person he slept with last night. It’s pathetic, but he wants to talk about it, and the only person who’ll ever know is Jack.

“Is your mom home?” Jack mumbles.

The smile on Kent’s face is all wrong. He fixes it. Jack opens his eyes, and Kent forces himself not to react. Nothing’s changed.

“Yeah, man. She’s making pancakes. Breakfast in ten.”

“You should’ve woken me up,” Jack complains, pushing away from Kent. “Can you tell I’m hungover?”

“Not really. You should shower, though. You smell like bad decisions.”

Jack laughs, and his breath is awful, but it still loosens something in Kent’s chest. “Happy New Year, asshole. See you downstairs.”

Kent has to wait for a few minutes, head under the covers, but when he gets up he’s steady. He’s Kent fucking Parson, future NHL star, and he can have his cake and eat it too. They’re getting away with something so huge that he’s almost proud of himself: no matter what happens from now on, he and Jack are tied together.

(He counts Jack’s pills before he leaves the room. It’s the last time he does it.)

 

iv.

Everything is under control as long as Kent is around. 

Jack played a game gasping, running on fumes and adrenaline. He fucked up on the ice, in the cafeteria, in someone’s room, but he broke even, because Kent is in Jack’s bed without tearing chunks out of him. He must’ve done something right, even if it didn’t feel like it.

Jack forces himself to relax. Kent doesn’t make him talk; he puts some music on and sings along, quiet and off-key, until Jack finally falls asleep. It’s exactly what he needed.


End file.
